Pirelli’s Mario Isola explained plans for the 2023 tire compound tests which have been scheduled for free practice at two of the remaining races this year.
As the 2022 season enters its final stages, attention is slowly but surely turning to 2023. As this is the first year for the new 18-inch wheels, adjustments to Pirelli’s 2023 tire lineup are expected to be made.
For this to happen Pirelli needs to carry out real-world testing on the new generation of Formula 1 cars and with such a busy racing schedule the intention is to carry out tire testing during testing for the United States and Japanese Grand Prix over the next few weeks.
Isola explained the plans as he spoke to the media during the Italian Grand Prix, as he revealed that the intention of the 2023 compounds is to help reduce understeer as a feature.
The second practice sessions at Austin and Suzuka will be extended to 90 minutes to allow for tire testing, with the teams set to run on unmarked compounds that only Pirelli will know.
“The plan is to primarily test compounds,” Isola explained.
“We have the option of using FP2 which will be 90 minutes and not 60 – all 20 cars running different plans. As usual they are blind so the teams won’t know what they are testing.
“But it’s really important to us. It’s important to find new testing opportunities because with such a busy schedule, with 24 races next year, it will be… I don’t mean almost impossible to find the space to test but the European season is longer. short.
“Staying on track on Tuesday and Wednesday after the race is difficult, so we have to find new opportunities. The teams have been very collaborative with us to find solutions and one solution is to test during free practice.
“I know it’s a big effort on their part because they’re fighting for the championship and they’re going to lose a session, but it’s really important for us to deliver a product next year that’s even better compared to what we have this year.
“We are happy with the current product, but we know the teams are developing the cars and the performance is increasing. to be sure that we are heading in the right direction to have an even better championship next year.
Since the extended practice session has the unintended consequence of increasing the team’s engine mileage, Isola said the intent was to keep practice mileage within its usual range.
“We plan to give them race plans with similar mileage to what they have in a normal FP2,” he said.
“All the teams will do the same number of laps with blind prototypes, as I said. We try not to change the construction too much during this test because they have the car set up for the race weekend, it is so important that we don’t have a completely different build and force them to change the setup of the car too much.
“So working with the teams, we try to come up with some clever solutions in order to give us the opportunity to test and not disrupt the weekend too much for them.”
